The intention relates to a thermo-tape unit comprising a supply reel hub and a supply roll of thermo-tape wound on the supply reel hub, which thermo-tape has a trailing area adjoining the supply reel hub and a leading area remote from the supply reel hub, and a front side provided with an ink layer activable under the influence of heat and a back side at the reverse of the front side.
Such a thermo-tape unit of the type defined in the opening paragraph is commercially available from Phillips Electronics under the type number or ordering number PFA230. As thermo-tape the known thermo-tape unit comprises a so-called thermo-transfer foil whose front side carries an ink layer which is removable under the influence of heat, so that through point-by-point heating of the thermo-transfer foil by means of a thermal printer head the ink layer of the thermo-transfer tape, which basically consists of a special wax, can be transferred to normal paper in a point-by-point fashion. Such a thermo-transfer foil is used in facsimile equipment in which the received document is printed on normal paper by means of a thermal printer head and a thermo-transfer foil.
In the known thermo-tape unit it has proved to be unfavorable that with this thermo-tape unit it is not possible when the thermo-tape unit is mounted in an apparatus adapted to cooperate with this thermo-tape unit to transfer information about the characteristics of the thermo-tape unit, particularly its thermo-tape, to the apparatus.
It is to be noted that it is already known from a commercially available thermo-tape unit of the type defined in the opening paragraph to put such a thermo-tape unit only on the market in combination with a data carrier card, i.e. a so-called chip card, which data carrier card has a memory which stores data or information about characteristics of the thermo-tape unit and should also be inserted into an apparatus adapted to cooperate with the thermo-tape unit when this thermo-tape unit is mounted into the apparatus. This solution enables information about characteristics of the thermo-tape unit stored in the data carrier card to be transferred to the apparatus. However, such a separate data carrier card is comparatively costly, resulting in a more expensive thermo-tape unit, and moreover a separate operation is necessary to insert the data carrier card into the apparatus and, consequently, to enter the information relating to characteristics of the thermo-tape unit and stored in the data carrier card into the apparatus.